Transcript – Pathway to Diversity in STEM Review dialogue starter video

Dr Parwinder Kaur, Associate Professor and Director DNA Zoo Australia, University of Western Australia

This is Parwinder here, one of the expert panel members for Diversity in STEM Review.

Science, technology, engineering and mathematics, a.k.a STEM, is everywhere. It is all around us in everyday life.

Sally-Ann William, CEO at Cicada Innovations

My name is Sally-Ann and I'm the Chair of the Pathway to Diversity in STEM Review.

I became involved in this process because I fundamentally believe we need to do better and we need to create better pathways and greater pathways for everybody to be engaged.

Mikaela Jade, CEO and Founder at Indigital

Warami.

My name is Mikaela and I'm a panel member for the Pathways to Diversity in STEM Review.

Personally, I like to add an extra S to the STEM acronym to reflect storytelling, so it becomes STEMS, and storytelling is really about the stories that we tell to share intergenerational knowledge about science, technology, engineering and maths.

Duncan McIntyre, Deputy Secretary, Science and Technology Group, Department of Industry, Science and Resources

My name is Duncan and I'm a member of the Diversity in STEM panel.

STEM in many ways is about creativity.

It's about combining things that haven't been combined before to find new ways to do things that make our society better. And it's only through diversity that you have new things to combine to create knowledge that will take us forward.

Sally-Ann

It's for the youngest participants in our society to the oldest. It's something that we do and interact with every day.

But it's also something that we need to enable opportunities for people to create with and create solutions for every challenge that we face in society for the betterment of people, planet and prosperity.

Parwinder

Diversity and inclusion is no brainer. We all know that diversity fosters innovation and creativity.

It actually provides people a chance to unite in their differences.

Duncan

In the past, a lot of our science disciplines have excluded people who come at finding out about their world in different ways.

We have one of the most culturally diverse countries in terms of the backgrounds of our peoples, of anywhere in the world, and this review is wanting to find ways to include the knowledge that those people have and be able to take advantage of it.

Mikaela

Our First Nations Elders are some of the most phenomenal scientists I've ever met in this country, and they hold 80,000 years of ancestral knowledge about how Country works and how we're connected to this place called Australia.

Parwinder

Generally, we all ask a question, ‘Is STEM for me?’

Absolutely.

We have a certain way of imagining a scientist working in the lab. You know, this is this is how to enter the STEM workforce. Whereas that is not the case.

It is for everyone. It is for people like me and you.

I come from a very remote village in India, and I am today a professor in science, working at one of the top universities of the world in Australia. And if I can do it, anybody can do it.

Sally-Ann

I have a STEM career, and yet my parents owned a fruit and veggie shop. I was the first in my family to finish high school and the first in my family to go to university. But even then I didn't actually imagine that I'd be working in the world that I do today because it didn't exist yet.

And that's exactly the point of this review.

One of the things that I know to be true about STEM careers is we need the broadest representation of our population involved and engaged.

If we are going to create products and services and solutions to solve some of the world's most pressing problems, we need everybody to fully participate in that.

Mikaela

I'm appealing to mob all across Australia to be a part of this review.

We have the oldest living continuous culture in this world connected to science, technology, engineering and maths, and we have so much to gain from being further involved in Australia's innovation ecosystem, bringing our knowledge systems into critical technologies, for example.

It allows our people to fully express our cultures, to help create amazing products for this country and for our people to create intergenerational wealth opportunities on Country.

It's really important that our people and our voices are centred as a part of this review.

Duncan

So there are lots of ways in which having a diverse group of people involved in STEM will increase the quality of our science and the impact Australian science can have on global science.

Parwinder

It is about time that organisations across the world prepare themselves for a much needed systemic and a radical change.

Sally-Ann

Change requires all of us to lean in. It's not just the work of government or industry or community.

Mikaela

We're really keen to hear from you. However you feel it's important to express your views about STEM in Australia.

Duncan

Your ideas could be the ones that make the big difference and we'll only know if you give them to us.

Sally-Ann

Your voice matters and we need to hear from you. We need to hear what's working. We need to hear what your challenges are. We need to hear what your ideas are.

Parwinder

I urge you to participate in this conversation which has been started and led by industry.gov.au

Mikaela

Didjurigura.

Thank you for being a part of this STEM review.

Final panel

Shows the Australian Government crest; the title ‘Diversity in STEM Review 2023’; abstract artwork for the review; and the link: consult.industry.gov.au/diversityinstem1